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Housing Minister Michael Gove wants to turn Cambridge into Britain’s Silicon Valley with the help of big investments in technology and housing, The Times reports.
About 250,000 new homes will be built in the city over 20 years, and land will be identified for the construction of new business parks, laboratories and science centers.
In the process, Cambridge’s population will skyrocket from its current total population of 150,000, and investment will spread around Oxford and Milton Keynes.
Civil servants are believed to be tasked with planning new rail lines and, potentially, new tram and bus networks.
The project is in the early stages of development, but it’s apparently being called “Cambridge 2040” behind closed doors.
A source said: “This is basically massive growth, taking local plans and building on them.
“The idea is that Cambridge will become the Silicon Valley of Europe.”
Silicon Valley is a region of California known as the world’s center of technology and innovation.
Gove is considering removing some of the environmental regulations in the Leveling and Restoration Bill to make it easier to build new homes.
The government may also create a “special attack squad” of planning officers to be sent to local governments that lack the “capacity and capacity” to handle large planning applications.